Classica is a channel for the classical music lovers. It brings home live broadcasts of concerts, world premieres, and legendary recordings of the best classical music, operas, and ballets. It also features documentaries and interviews about the greatest artists and orchestras, and world renowned stages.

CLASSICA CHANNEL HIGHLIGHTS

MARCH 2019

Czech WeekendMarch 30 to 31

With the month drawing to an end, Stingray Classica offers a very special Czech Weekend. By broadcasting multiple premieres, Stingray Classica pays tribute to some of the greatest Czech musicians, composers, and venues! Enjoy the romantic folklore music by Smetana and Dvořák during a concert from the famous Waldbühne venue. On Sunday, viewers can relive the very first Europakonzert held in Prague or watch the premiere of Ariane, a seldom seen one-act opera by modern Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů.

Classica FavouritesMarch 2 at 9:00 PM

The evening of March 2nd, Stingray Classica opens with an exceptional performance by one of the most popular performers in classical music. For years, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky (1978) has been mesmerizing audiences with his timeless angelic voice. The Frenchman received multiple ECHO Klassik awards. This performance, with the Freiburger Barockorchester, featuring sacred music by Telemann and Bach, earned him a nomination for a Grammy in Best Classical Vocal Solo!

Concours Musical Interntational de MontrealMarch 11-17, 2019

From March 11th to 17th, Stingray Classica broadcasts the complete 2018 edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal (CMIM), one of the most prestigious vocal competitions in the world! This annual event draws thousands of spectators to concert halls, as well as listeners on the radio and web. Watch star singers of tomorrow and meet some of the greatest upcoming vocal talents that classical music has to offer!

Valerius EnsembleMarch 4-8, 2019

In the evenings of MArch 4th to 8th, Stingray Classica introduces the Dutch Valerius Ensemble to all the lovers of classical music. The ensemble’s musicians offer chamber music in the broadest sense of the word, providing interesting concert programs in a wide variety of genres. During the first week of the month, the ensemble presents baroque works by Bach and Vivaldi, romantic trios by Dvorak and Rachmaninoff and even some swinging ragtime music!

FEBRUARY 2019

Monday Opera PremieresStarting 4th February 2019 at 9PM

Every Monday evening Stingray Classica presents a new rendition of a magnificent vocal stage work! Travel back in time with Handel’s oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth (1707) and experience the enchanting Rusalka, a fairy tale opera in three acts, by Antonin Dvořák. Rusalka still remains one of the cornerstones of Czech opera houses! On February 11th, Stingray Classica broadcasts the rarely performed Mefistofele, Boito’s only finished and preserved opera, in which the composer combines influences of Verdi and Wagner; expect rousing choirs and intricate melodies! The special closes on February 25th with a performance of Salieri’s pleasant opera buffa Fallstaff. Salieri was in fact one of the most respected composers of his time, despite his portrayal in the film Amadeus.

In February, Stingray Classica brings a wide variety of interesting music documentaries. Tune in every Tuesday evening to widen your knowledge of classical music! French organ player Olivier Latry will learn music lovers all there is to know about the modern mechanics of the great Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Notre-Dame in Paris. We head back into early 20th century recording history with the documentary Loving Carmen, which builds on the earliest studies of Carmen in art, literature and cinema. On February 12thStingray Classica will make a little sidestep into the jazz genre, broadcasting the film Looking for Cole, which gives a unique insight into Cole Porter’s most interesting life and discusses his work with numerous experts!

February 05 | Claudio Abbado and the musicians of the Orchestra Mozart
February 05 | In the Organ’s Stomach
February 12 | Looking for Cole
February 19 | Loving Carmen

Valentine’s Special14th February 2019 9PM to 11:50PM

Romance is in the air on Stingray Classica! Swoon over some passionate dance premieres and feel giddy about spectacular choreographies. Enjoy the loveliest romantic ballets on Stingray Classica’s Valentine’s Day-special, because it’s time for timeless romanticism in its purest shape: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Prague National Ballet performs this ultimate love story to Prokofiev’s music in a choreography by Petr Zuska. Also expect sensuality, intensity, and ecstasy in three works by Malandain in the premiere of Soirée de Ballets.

February 14 | Romeo and Juliet
February 05 | Soiree de Ballets

JANUARY 2019

Claudio Abbado Memorial20th January 2019

Stingray Classica fully dedicates Sunday, January 20 to conductor Claudio Abbado, who died five years ago. Enjoy countless performances under the baton of this Italian maestro. Following his 1960 debut at La Scala in Milan, Abbado was assistant to the revered Leonard Bernstein in New York. By 1966, Abbado was already working with the Berliner Philharmonic and in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, he succeeded Herbert von Karajan as chief conductor! On this Memorial Day, Stingray Classica broadcasts bracing Beethoven symphonies, the greatest gala performances from the Berlin Philharmonic and most-interesting documentaries giving insight in the maestro’s gifted musical mind!

The finest dance performances will enthral you for the month of January, because every Thursday evening Stingray Classica presents a never seen before broadcast by the world most renowned choreographers and ballets! Experience Romeo and Juliet and Magifique by Thierry Malandain and his Ballet Biarritz and a classic performance of Daphnis et Chloé to the music of Maurice Ravel by the Ballets de Monte-Carlo! The month will close with Kurt Jooss’ ballet The Green Table, which expresses the futile, relentless tragedy of war.

This year, Stingray Classica opens with an opera premiere on every Monday evening! The Offenbach Year of 2019 will bring the composer’s opera bouffe La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein followed by the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s rendition of Meyerbeer’s magnum opus: Les Huguenots. On January 21 we will travel back in time with Henry Purcell’s King Arthur by the laureated French ensemble Le Concert Spirituel. January closes with Così fan tutte, one of W. A. Mozart’s last and most popular operas!

DECEMBER 2018

December PremieresEvery Friday of December

Stingray Classica closes 2018 with five operas and ballet productions which have never been broadcast before. In Les enfants de Scaramouche, we follow the young talents of the Ballet School of the Paris Opera through playful storytelling dance performances, shot in various places in the French capital. But there is more ballet from Paris; on December 21, lovers of dance can enjoy a rendition of Prokofiev’s ballet Cinderella from l’Opéra Royal du Chateau de Versailles. Next to ballet, the special contains two Italian operas. December 7 premieres a rendition of Donizetti’s tragic opera Lucia di Lammemoor by the Opéra Royal de Liège, which is was composed at the height of the composer’s success. The special closes with Luigi Rossi’s l’Orfeo, not to be mistaken with Monteverdi’s famous opera! Rossi’s composed this three-act work in 1647, it is one of the first operas ever to be staged in France.

FairytalesDecember 17 – 21, 2018

The week before the cosy Christmas days, Stingray Classica airs a Fairy Tale-special! From Monday 17th to Friday 21st our viewers will be spoiled with various operas and ballets with storylines originating from fairy tales, myths and legends. On the program are Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Puccini’s Turandot and La Cenerentola by Rossini.

Merry Christmas!December 23 – 27, 2018

Stingray Classica ends the year on a happy note! Make yourself comfortable and enjoy most heart-warming oratorios, concerts, operas and ballets during the holiday period. Tchaikovsky’s beloved The Nutcracker, Humperdinck’s exciting Hänsel und Gretel and J. S. Bach’s atmospheric Christmas Oratorio; they all bring on that Christmas feeling we all love. Moreover, the festive Christmas concerts Sounds Like Christmas, Baroque Christmas Concert, Silent Night, Holy Night bring you in the perfect Christmas mood.

NOVEMBER 2018

Dance MonthEvery Tuesday and Thursday

The finest dance performances will enthrall you for the month of November on Stingray Classica with ballet and dance on special feature! Every Tuesday and Thursday, Stingray Classica delivers new, wonderful dance performances to your screen. Enjoy the best in international ballet during the resplendent Prague Ballet Gala and timeless classic choreographies of Giselle Delibes’ Coppelia! Whatever your preference, Stingray’s Classica’s Dance Month has something for everyone!

November 1 21:00 Delibes Coppelia
November 6 21:00 Carmen
November 8 21:00 Giselle (Stuttgarter Ballet)
November 13 21:00 Giselle (Opera National de Bordeaux)
November 15 21:00 Soulscapes by Uwe Scholtz
November 20 21:00 Tricentenary of the French Dance School
November 22 21:00 Prague Ballet Gala
November 27 21:00 Aria by Bejart
November 29 21:00 Le Rendez-Vous

Mozart on Tour

In November, Stingray Classica presents the series Mozart on Tour. Beginning in November 1st, discover a new episode every day until November 13! The documentary series chronicles Mozart’s childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and his travels throughout Europe, which ultimately proved to be a futile quest for fame and fortune. Each episode of Mozart on Tour is centered on a different European city and combines narration and musical excerpts. Conductor and composer, Andre Previn sets the historical and musical context, while actor Michael Kitchen (Foyle’s War) reads excerpts from Mozart’s travel correspondence. Each episode also features a complete performance of one of Mozart’s 27 Piano Concerti, performed by world- renowned soloist, orchestras, and maestros in carefully chosen historical settings.

Rossini Tribute

The entire November at Stingray Classica broadcasts a tribute to Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), in honour of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death on November 13th. On Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays, no less than fourteen opera productions will be broadcasted, including many premieres! Rossini is undoubtedly the most important Italian composer of the first half of the eighteenth century. The composer is known for his lively and energetic comic operas (opera buffa), but his contribution to the development of the opera seria, should not be underestimated! The composer paved the way for generations of opera composers, including Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Vincenzo Bellini, and Richard Wagner.

OCTOBER 2018

New Operas Every MondayAll Saturdays of September

In October,Monday evenings are all about Italian opera. Every week, Stingray Classica broadcasts a never-before seen opera production by an italian master. We open October 1st with Verdi’s La Traviata directed by the Mexican star tenor Rolando Villazon. In addition, the Opera de Liege performs two Puccini operas from Opera Royal de Liege: La Boheme. October 22nd is even double fun with two one-hit wonders from the Verismo period: Leoncavallo’s II Pagliaci and Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana!

From October 16 to 21 its Spanish week at Stingray Classica! With no less than six broadcasts featuring Spanish music and ﬂamenco and ﬂavoured performances. We open with the Berlin Gala from 1997, which was fully dedicated to Bizet’s famous opera Carmen, situated in Sevilla, followed by a Waldbühne Concert consisting of the most-beloved melodies by Spanish composers. On October 21 we make a little twist to tango, with works from South and South and Latin America under the baton of the Argentinian Daniel Barenboim! Stingray Classica concludes the Spanish special with two contrasting opera performances from the prestigious Teatro Real in Madrid: Willibald Gluck’s Alceste and Igor Stravinsky’s Persephone. Make sure not to miss out on the explosive power and intensity of feeling of the traditional Spanish ﬂamenco in a dance production of Carmen created by Antonio Gades!

SEPTEMBER 2018

Children’s Corner SeriesAll Saturdays of September

Children love classical music! All the more reason for Stingray Classica to dedicate the Saturdays to young lovers of classical music. Stingray Classica’s Children’s Corner series is an entertaining introduction to classical music masterpieces, led by the malicious and friendly Pino di Pianopoli, a funny character who is happy to torment his pianist friends Anthony and Joseph Paratore! Each Saturday, you and your children will enjoy entertaining performances and delightful pieces especially for our younger viewers. Fun times guaranteed for the whole family!

New DocumentariesAll Tuesdays of September

Every Tuesday evening in September the viewers of Stingray Classica can enjoy never before seen classical documentaries. Starting September 4th with the film My Heart is Burning from 2006. With his casual and up to date appearance, René Pape represents a new generation of opera singers, always hungry for new challenges and open to ambitious experiments. On September 11 Stingray Classica broadcast the documentary Gorzaran – Time Passing. In this 2011 film, director Frank Scheffer follows the passionate Iranian avant-garde composer Nader Mashayekhi when asked in 2005 to lead the Symphony Orchestra of Tehran. After thirty years of exile in Vienna, Mashayekhi returns to his native country!

The documentary Multiple Identities – Encounters with Daniel Barenboim (September 18) tracks pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim through various concert venues and shows the multi-talented nature of Barenboim, teaching the young musicians of his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra consisting of Arab, Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish musicians. Multiple Identities is a film about music, about music making and a celebration of a remarkable personality. The Stingray Classica special closes September 25th with the documentary Americans in Pyongyang, in which we accompany the orchestra members of the New York Philharmonic on their historic trip to Pyongyang in February 2008!

Concert PremieresAll Wednesdays of September

In September, the Wednesday evenings at Stingray Classica are filled with brand-new concert performances! Our special with premieres opens on September 5th with The Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch by German composer Detlev Glanert (*1960). The upcoming weeks you’ll enjoy fast finger work in Beethoven sonata performances by keyboard virtuoso Roberto Giordano and a successful recital by Russian pianist Misha Fomin, recorded at the prestigious Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The month will be closing with a performance by the upcoming Young European String (YES) ensemble Camerata. The program entitled The Red Priest and the Tanguero features not only Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, but also Astór Piazzolla’s version of this monumental work!

On August 31 Stingray Brava and Stingray Classica celebrate the birthday of the great Israeli violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman. During this day, Classica will broadcast no less than five concerts that feature Perlman as violist and conductor. Enjoy highly technical passages in Violin Concertos by Brahms and Beethoven. Furthermore, Perlman joins forces with Daniel Barenboim and Yo-Yo Ma to perform beloved Beethoven pieces and stars as conductor in two splendid concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra!

Stingray Classica devotes the entire month of August to Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), as Saturday, August 25 marks the famous American conductor, composer and pianist’s centenary! Stingray Classica celebrates the renowned maestro’s life and work with new concert footage, in which Bernstein’s music takes center stage!

JULY 2018

Haydn – The Seasons
4th July 2018, Wednesday, 9PM

From the Großes Festspielhaus: The Opening Concert of the Salzburg Festival 2013 – “Die Jahreszeiten” (The Seasons) by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt; Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Michael Schade (tenor), Florian Boesch (bass), Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. After “The Creation” (1798), “The Seasons” (1801) are Haydn’s second great German-language oratorio. It describes the seasons from the perspective of farmers: spring is the time of sowing and hope, in summer the whole nature revives, autumn brings harvest, hunting and vintage, in winter fog and darkness come. The popular four-part work is a summary of all that Haydn was able to describe in music.

Mahler – Symphony No. 8
6th July 2018, Friday, 9PM

Which work could be more suitable for Gustavo Dudamel and his Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra – formerly known as the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, the most well-known flagship ensemble of El Sistema – to mark the highlight of the residency of El Sistema at the Salzburg Festival than Gustav Mahler’s Eighth, the “Symphony of a Thousand”? Eight top-notch soloists – among them Emily Magee, Juliane Banse, Klaus Florian Vogt and Kurt Rydl -, four choruses and the 200 orchestra musicians stretch the limits of the immense stage of the Großes Festspielhaus. “The invasion of sheer enthusiasm” (Der Standard).

Verdi – Falstaff
11th July 2018, Wednesday, 9PM

From Salzburg Festival: “Falstaff” by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Conductor: Zubin Mehta – Stage director: Damiano Michieletto. With Ambrogio Maestri (Sir John Falstaff), Fiorenza Cedolins (Mrs Alice Ford), Massimo Cavalletti (Ford), Eleonora Buratto (Nannetta), Elisabeth Kulman (Mrs Quickly), Javier Camarena (Fenton). In his last opera Verdi was aiming not to revive an amusing or ridiculous figure in the tradition of the Italian opera buffa but to portray a human character in all his different facets. In cooperation with the experienced librettist Arrigo Boito he wrote a lyric comedy quite unlike any other.

Verdi – Don Carlos
13th July 2018, Friday, 2PM

From the Salzburg Festival: “Don Carlo” by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Conductor: Antonio Pappano – Stage director: Peter Stein. With Matti Salminen (Philip II), Jonas Kaufmann (Don Carlos), Anja Harteros (Elisabeth of Valois), Thomas Hampson (Marquis of Posa), Ekaterina Semenchuk (Princess Eboli), Eric Halfvarson (The Grand Inquisitor). Friedrich Schiller was one of Verdi’s favourite dramatists along with Shakespeare and Victor Hugo; the setting of “Don Carlos” is the longest and most ambitious of all his operas. In no other opera did Verdi explore such a rich variety of human relationships as in “Don Carlo”. His music invokes no less powerfully the scenes of the action and the atmosphere of hopelessness that dominates this dark drama from the very beginning.

From the Residenzhof Salzburg, discover A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare with breathtaking music by Felix Mendelssohn. Under the baton of Ivor Bolton, this performance was adapted by Henry Mason and directed by Henry Mason. Shakespeare masterfully ties together complex layers of action: three lovers who try to find their true love, escapes, mix-ups and love potions, complexity and ambiguity as inherent as only in dreams. Mendelssohn’s enchanting music which he wrote for a production of this play is the perfect completion. “This music is like flying on a magic carpet” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “What a feast of fantasy! What a feast for the senses!” (Stuttgarter Zeitung).

Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2011
20th July 2018, Friday, 2PM

In the Mahler year 2011, the eminent Pierre Boulez conducted the traditional opening concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival. The concert begins with the “Lulu Suite” by Gustav Mahler’s pupil Alban Berg. The music for the tragic temptress is sung here by the dazzling young soprano Anna Prohaska. In Berg’s concert aria “Der Wein”, Dorothea Röschmann delivers a masterful interpretation. The main work of the concert is Mahler’s “Das klagende Lied” – a great spectral opera for the mind’s eye scored for massive orchestral and vocal forces; the soloists are Dorothea Röschmann, Anna Larsson and Johan Botha.

Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2010
27th July 2018, Friday, 9PM

The opening concert of the Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world’s most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event. In 2010 the Festival celebrated its 90th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Great Festival Hall. The official opening concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Daniel Barenboim, one of today’s leading pianists and conductors who 45 years ago had made his debut at the Salzburg Festival. The event opened with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Daniel Barenboim as soloist and conductor. Followed by five “Notations” for Orchestra by Pierre Boulez, the highly acclaimed concert ended with Anton Bruckner’s “Te Deum”, performed by the famous singers Dorothea Röschmann, Elina Garanca, Klaus Florian Vogt and René Pape, the Chorus of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mezzo soprano Magdalena Kožená does not only make the heavenly joys resound in the final movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, earlier in the concert, she devotes herself to the seraphic beauty and intimate simplicity of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder. Practically all songs that Mahler composed prior to 1900 were based on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of folk poems published by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. Since then, Mahler turned exclusively towards one single poet, the Franconian orientalist and translator Friedrich Rückert. Mahler acknowledged that the poems moved him so deeply that he sometimes felt he had written them himself. In the transcendent final Lied, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, he also quoted a phrase from the Adagio of his fourth symphony. Asked what it meant, he replied that it personifies himself.

Mahler – Symphony No. 5
15th July 2018, Saturday, 9PM

With the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a globally unique orchestra was formed, made sure of great moments and international headlines. “A conductor is back, an orchestra reborn” the New York Times wrote, “The miracle of Lucerne” praised the Berliner Tagesspiegel. In the summer of 2004, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra embarks on its second season. Once again, Claudio Abbado stands at the music stand of an exquisite orchestra drawing together outstanding orchestral musicians and soloists such as Kolja Blacher, Natalia Gutman, Reinhold Friedrich and Sabine Meyer. Live-recording including Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

Maurizio Pollini and the Lucerne Festival play under the baton of maestro Claudio Abbado. At the yearly Lucerne Festival in Switzerland they perform the beautiful Piano Concerto No 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven. This Piano Concerto was composed between 1805 and 1806 and Beethoven himself played the solo when the concerto premiered in December 1808. In this concert the solo is played by the Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, well known for his interpretations of works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Chopin. This concert was recorded at the Lucerne Festival in 2004.

Lucerne Festival 2006
29th July 2018, Sunday, 9PM

The three hammer blows in the finale of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 seem prophetic: Mahler lost his position at the Wiener Staatsoper one year after this work premiered in 1906, his daughter died, and the composer was diagnosed with a cardiac anomaly. A pervading dark atmosphere is not unfamiliar in Mahler’s Symphonies, but to not have a glorious finale or peaceful acceptance was an absolute first for Mahler. The playful Mahler who referred to Austrian ländlers, birds, and cow bells, is nowhere to be found. In this light, it is no surprise that this work is known as ‘Tragic’, although Mahler himself retracted this title before publication.